Thursday, December 31, 2015

Time for Point of No Return to take stock of the main events of the Year:

Je suis juif: This past year will be remembered as a bad year for the predominantly Sephardi Jews of France. The Charlie Hebdo and Kosher supermarket attacks of January 2015 took a particularly heavy toll of Tunisian-born Jews. Record numbers of French Jews - 8,000 - are making aliya, but les Feujs are also coming to the UK.

Meanwhile, Spain granted citizenship to over 4, 000 Jews who could prove their Sephardi roots. A number have been Turkish Jews, who have been feeling the heat from President Erdogan's antisemitism, despite a recent warming of Relations with Israel.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

An effect of the Arab Spring is to cause Egyptians to go through a period of introspection and look back with sympathy and nostalgia to the time when Jews lived in and contributed to the land. In political scientist Amr Hamzawy's vew, Egypt ought to recognise Jews' displacement in this frank interview (via MEMRI). He idealises the Jews as integral to Egypt's Arabic culture - not always true, some did not even speak Arabic - and says very few went to the Zionist entity - not true, about half Egypt's Jews went to to Israel. (With thanks: Lily)

The Years Following The 'Displacement' Held For Them Precisely What They Had Feared When Their Ships Left The Shores Of Egypt: The Trip Was One-Way, With No Return Tickets"

"It is an odd thing, these people who were forced to leave Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s. They left it knowing no other homeland, and most of them did not know their final destination. The majority came upon safe havens in which to stay, settle down, and work, in a number of European countries and in the United States.

"The years following the 'displacement' held for them precisely what they had feared when their ships left the shores of Egypt: The trip was one way, with no return ticket.

"These are the Jews of Egypt, only a handful of whom knocked on Israel's door, and about whom I am writing today as a human concern, without any connection to politics.

"The strange thing about them is that in successive generations they have preserved their Egyptian identity, defining it as an emotional connection, a cultural identity, and a constant interest in... the homeland that was... Those who left Egypt in their 20s, 30s, or 40s, and who as mothers and fathers brought their children to Western societies, still use Arabic intensively. Some have managed to pass it on to their children and grandchildren – though while some of the elderly use an Egyptian dialectic whose expressions and forms are from the 1950s and 1960s, the middle-aged and the young use literary Arabic. [This is because] their emotional connection to Egypt prompted them to gain or refine their linguistic skills, and they studied[the language] academically – as do Westerners interested in Egypt or in the Arab countries in general."

The Egyptian Jews Remember "Human Solidarity... From [Both] Muslim And Christian Egyptians" – As Well As "Negativity, Vengefulness... And Denial Of Their Rights... From Other Egyptians"

"As for the [displaced Jews'] emotional connection to Egypt, its main source is the memories of those who left the places where they lived, studied, and worked. [These memories are] of their neighbors and the particulars of social life; of intellectual, artistic, and political activity; ...of the human solidarity some [of the Jews] received from Muslim and Christian Egyptians when they were collectively punished with displacement and were unwillingly embroiled in issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict; and also of the negativity, vengefulness... greed, exploitation, and denial of their rights that they encountered from other Egyptians...

"An additional source of thisemotional connection is [their]continued fondness for Egyptian culture and its various forms of creative expression: music, song, cinema, and popular culture... and likewise the[ir] continued interest in current events in Egypt..."

The Egyptian Jews' Culture Of Remembrance "Should Drive Us In Egypt To Frankly And Sincerely Discuss... The Displacement, Oppression, And Collective Punishment Forced On The Jews Of Egypt In The 1950s And 1960s"

"Today I am not talking about politics, and I am not concerned with the various positions of the Egyptian Jews living in Western societies regarding the Palestinian people's right to self-determination – which some of them justly affirm and others wrongly deny. And I am not concerned with those who regularly visit Israel, or with those who refrain from doing so out of rejection of the occupation, the crime of settlement, and the violation of the Palestinians' rights and liberties.

"Today I am not concerned with any of that. I am just taking note of this singular case of the culture of remembrance and the safeguarding of a love for the homeland that was... [It] should drive us in Egypt to frankly and sincerely discuss the facts about the displacement, oppression, and collective punishment forced on the Jews of Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s – which call for a culture of remembrance of a different sort [in Egypt].

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Shmuli Boteach, blogging in the Jerusalem Post, was not surprised when the leader of Da'esh in Baghdad, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, finally came out with bloodcurdling threats against the Jews. Yes, 'kill the Jews!' is a rallying cry for desperate Islamists, but it is a safe bet that had there been any Jews still living in the areas controlled by Syria and Iraq, they would long ago have met the same sorry fate as the Yazidis and Christians.

Islamic State fighters (Photo: Islamic Social Media)
Something I have found so surprising throughout all these events is how
IS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi have hardly made even the
smallest mention of Israel or the Jews. I was waiting for that
inevitable day when IS would declare its intentions to destroy Israel
and commit genocide against the Jewish people.

It’s kind of a
coming of age, a rite of passage for a terrorist group when the day
comes that they announce their intentions to wipe out the Israelites.
But the weeks and months passed and we heard not a peep.

I was
not alone in noticing this. For the past few years a favorite rumor
among conspiracy theorists and haters of Israel alike has been that IS
is actually a Mossad organization, and Baghdadi is in reality a Jew.

Why
else have they not done anything to harm the Jews? After all, no one
can deny that, barring immediate existential threats, the Jews pretty
much always receive the top honors on the genocide wish lists of
terrorist organizations.

And now suddenly this last Saturday,
after IS had finally taken a real beating from Western forces and air
strikes, Baghdadi released a message to his demoralized fighters in
which he declares, “We are getting closer to you [Israel] day by day.
Do not think that we have forgotten about you.”

Baghdadi
continues, “God caused the Jews of the world to gather in Israel, and
the war against them has become easy. It is the obligation of every
Muslim to carry out Jihad.” He added, “Jews, you will not enjoy
Palestine. God has gathered you in Palestine so that the Mujahedeen can
reach you soon and you will hide by the rock and the tree.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Georges Bensoussan, historian and editorial director at the Holocaust Memorial in Paris, is at the centre of a firestorm accusing him of 'incitement to racial hatred'.

A group of left-wing intellectuals, including the controversial academic Shlomo Sand, lodged a complaint against Bensoussan with MRAP, a French anti-racist movement. Bensoussan may be called to face a tribunal.

During a TV discussion broadcast on 10 October 2015, Repliques, Bensoussan commented that France cannot hope to integrate its Maghrebi immigrants unless it recognised that these immigrants imbibe antisemitism 'with their mother's milk'.

Bensoussan, whose family comes from Morocco and who authored an 800-page volume on the uprooting of Jews from Arab countries Juifs en pays Arabes: le grand deracinement 1850 - 1975 in 2012 , claims that he was paraphrasing the words of a 'brave' Algerian sociologist, Smain Laachar." Everyone knows it but nobody will say it," Laachar had declared of Arab/Muslim antisemitism.

Laachar has since denied having said or written this 'ignominy'. He said it was outrageous for Bensoussan to have claimed that antisemitism was transmitted by blood.

Bensoussan has countered that Arab antisemitism was not transmitted biologically but culturally. He accused his critics of 'intellectual terrorism'.

"These intellectuals have trouble imagining that the ruled can be rulers, racists, antisemites and violent people," said Bensoussan. He accused the Left of still being hung up about the 'colonial ' Algerian war, 53 years later: "The war has not ended. We still think we are at war with our immigrants."

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Enjoying the Tripoli beachfront and hobnobbing with Sophia Loren and Little Tony, the wealthy Jewish elite who stayed on in Libya after the mass exodus of their co-religionists in 1949 lived in an Italianate bubble. Their charmed life was marked by constant contradiction, writes Eyal David in Haaretz - until it was rendered intolerable by the violent Libyan reaction to the Six-Day War.

"On
June 5, when the first news of the Six Day War reached Tripoli, the riots broke
out (...) Tripoli, the clean and pleasant city has become something out of
Dante's Inferno. The air was heavy, smoky, police and soldiers armed with
rifles and submachine guns were everywhere. The streets were littered with
broken glass, broken objects, broken wood and looted goods from shops (...) it
was clear that the rioters were going first to the Jews, but now they are after
everything foreign...".

This quote,
taken from a testimony of a bank teller, reveals the 'discordant final note' in
the life of the small and wealthy Jewish community that remained in Tripoli in
the fifties and the sixties - its elimination in 1967 following the Six Day
War. The war exposed Jews to violent riots in which 17 people were murdered,
including two entire families that were killed by a Libyan officer: the Luzon family
and the Baranes-Raccah family, the family of my grandfather's sister. This
pogrom was the third in two decades (previous pogroms occurred in 1945 and
1948), and came after years of political and economic restrictions that narrowed
the activity of Jews in the economic and commercial life of the city. The Jewish
community, which was for generations an integral part of the social fabric of
the country, had to hide and quickly leave the country, their homes, and all
their possessions. A small number of Jews did remain in the country until the 1969
military coup of Muammar al-Qaddafi, who, through a series of measures and
rules immediately clarified that in the 'new Libya' under his rule there was no
place for foreigners and Jews.

The small
Jewish community that remained in Libya after the great wave of immigration to
Israel from 1949 to 1951 was concentrated mainly in the capital of Tripoli (a
few remained in the city of Benghazi), numbered over 4,000, and according to
some reports was one of the wealthiest Jewish communities in the world at the
time. These Jews were mainly members of the upper middle class who chose to
remain in the country under the independent Libyan regime of King Idris (starting
December 1951) and did not have their bags packed in anticipation of an
opportunity to leave, as one would think. On the contrary, they were integrated
into a narrow stratum of foreign and Muslim elites, all of whom roamed in the
same social milieu and were rooted in Tripoli by their property, assets, and
financial interests.

The lives of the Jews in the city were marked
by constant contradiction and it seems that they, whether consciously or
unconsciously, "walked on eggshells". On the one hand, they were
locals; some of them even came from families with old roots in the country that
continued to play a vital and stable role in the domestic economic scene even after
the discovery of oil in the country in the late fifties and the resulting
foreign investment. But on the other hand, with their behavior and dress, they
made it clear that they were not Arabs. Like the other foreign members of the
elite, they saw the center of their identity in Europe, especially in Italy, and
thus neither in Africa nor in the Arab world. Some of them even held European
nationalities, mainly Italian but also French and British for example. Therefore,
they adopted Western cultural trappings and symbols of social status, which
separated them from the surrounding Muslim society.

Although
they lived in an independent Muslim country, most of the time they conducted
their lives in Italian and not in Arabic. In addition, they maintained their
Jewish identity albeit with a high degree of religious flexibility, even when
their Judaism brought discriminatory laws against them. And in general, they
kept their distance from the Muslim population, which constituted the majority
of Libya. For these Muslims, the Jews, in their clear identification with the Italian
culture and language, turned their backs on Libyan Arab society. Moreover,
their high socioeconomic status completely contradicted the low status they
should have had historically as "ahl al-dhimma" (a protected
religious minority under Muslim rule). Further, anti-Jewish propaganda on the
radio and in newspapers as well as in sermons in mosques, which intensified in
view of the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict, increased hostility against Jews.

Despite
the restrictions, prohibitions, and harassment that the Jews faced at that time
and the natural sense of fear that some of them felt, they continued to live a comfortable
and vibrant life, which was characteristic of the narrow bourgeois social
stratum in Tripoli. From interviews I conducted with members of the community
in Israel and Italy, as well as the little written documentation that exists on
the subject, it was revealed that the places of entertainment and leisure were
their escape points, in some ways "islands of sanity" in a social
reality that was changing from moment to moment against them. Furthermore, these
places gave them a stable anchor to hold on to, albeit illusory and fleeting.

Libyan Jews at the Tripoli Lido (photo courtesy Vito Raccah)

The
community spent its leisure time at the beach of Tripoli, or the 'Lido' as it
is called in Italian, in house parties, coffee shops and modern cinemas that
screened mostly Italian but also French and Hollywood movies. Besides these,
you could find the upper middle class Jews of Tripoli in the exclusive clubs of
the Italians and the British in the city. One of the most prominent clubs was The
Italian Club (Il Circolo Italia), which was located in front of the impressive
and beautiful promenade, Il Lungomare, which was built near the beach during
Italian rule. It was a prestigious member-only club that offered its patrons a
variety of activities in the fields of sports and entertainment, including
sport teams like basketball and boxing, various classes in areas like theater
and ballet, and Bridge tournaments.

The club, as its name indicates, was
designated for the Italian community in the city, but among its members were
also some wealthy Jews including a few members of the community I interviewed. They
stressed that Muslims did not frequent the club at all, only Christians and
Jews, but not only those holding Italian nationality. They said they had sent
their children to the classes held at the club and that they visited the club
when there were concerts and shows in Italian and for the Christmas and the New
Year celebrations (Capodanno in Italian). One of the interviewees talked about
how "when it was Christmas, rich Jews were taking up the tables and the
Italians were upset: 'What is going on, this is our celebration and the Jews
are taking all the places?!".

The hotels
located on the promenade were other centers in which parties and celebrations were
held. The most glamorous one was the Uaddan hotel, which was established in
1935 and was described as the "jewel of modern African architecture".
Daily cocktail parties were conducted at the hotel and it had a fancy entertainment
hall where different balls were held, such as the New Year's Eve ball, Saturday
night parties that "gave a good reason to hang out until after
midnight", costume parties, and festive events as varied as weddings of
the rich, including Jews.

Jewish guests at a dinner in honour of the film star Sophia Loren (photo courtesy of Vittorio Halfon)

The Uaddan hosted famous artists from Italy in the
fields of music, theater and cinema, such as Sophia Loren, Little Tony, Peppino
di Capri, Rita Pavone and many others and the rich echelon did not miss their
performances. It also had a large swimming pool and it was the home of the only
casino in town. The nightly entertainment in the casino was favored by more
than a few Jews who visited it on weekdays as well as on Saturdays and
holidays, and often lost a lot of money.

Another
recreational pursuit that should be mentioned is that of brothels and
nightclubs. The interviewees mentioned names of two major nightclubs - the more
prominent was the Mokambo and the other was a nightclub that operated in Suq al-Mushir
(سوقالمشير), one of the markets within the old city. These clubs
held "deluxe" cabarets, as one interviewee described them, as it was
"something with class, not
something dirty," and the people who came there were "people who had
some money, also Arabs". They hosted dance performances and stripteases of
"beautiful girls, but not Arabs. They were all foreign, European. Most of
them from Italy, but there were also Yugoslavian, German, English, Spanish,
French... ".

In
conclusion, most of the Jews who remained in Libya after the great wave of
immigration of 1949-1951 continued to live their lives, while enjoying many
comforts but struggling to maintain their fractured identity as the social
space where it existed slowly diminished. This continued until the living
conditions became intolerable and they were forced to leave. At once, they had
to abandon the rich and full life they had had and start from scratch, as
immigrants in a new country. Only about a half of the community that had moved
to Italy in the late 1960s, mainly the adults, immigrated to Israel later. A few
from the last wave immigration and the former ones reached other countries such
as the USA, France, and England.

Eyal David received his MA from the department of Middle
Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His thesis "The
Daily Life of Upper-Middle Class Jews in Tripoli, Libya: 1951-1967"
was written under the guidance of Professor Harvey Goldberg and Doctor
Liat Kozma of the Hebrew University. Contact: eyalda1@gmail.com.

Friday, December 25, 2015

On Christmas Day Christian and Jewish leaders have finally plucked up the courage to condemn the persecution of religious minorities by those who 'hate difference'. Let us remind them that the first ethnic minority to be expelled from the Arab Middle East were the Jews.

Sky News reports:

Christianity is facing "elimination" in the
Middle East at the hands of an Islamic State "apocalypse", the
Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby used his Christmas Day sermon
at Canterbury Cathedral to say IS is "igniting a trail of fear,
violence, hatred and determined oppression".

He branded the Islamist extremists as "a Herod of today" - a
reference to the Biblical despotic king of Judea at the time of Jesus's
birth.

"Confident that these are the last days, using force and
indescribable cruelty, they (IS) seem to welcome all opposition, certain
that the warfare unleashed confirms that these are indeed the end
times," he said.

Justin Welby

"They hate difference, whether it is Muslims who think
differently, Yazidis or Christians, and because of them the Christians
face elimination in the very region in which Christian faith began.

"This apocalypse is defined by themselves and heralded only by the angel of death.

"To all who have been or are being dehumanised by the
tyranny and cruelty of a Herod or an ISIS, a Herod of today, God's
judgement comes as good news, because it promises justice."

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis used his own festive message to
urge all faiths to unite in the face of attacks on their freedom to
worship.

He said: "It has been reported that persecution of
Christians persists in over a hundred countries, more than for any other
religion.

The Pope delivers his sermon at the Vatican

"Faith communities have a responsibility to stand together
to oppose discrimination and attacks on freedom of religious expression
wherever they are to be found.

"Most recently, the shocking ban on public celebrations of
Christmas in Brunei is reflective of an intolerance that as Jews, we
simply cannot countenance."

So popular has its exhibition of the Iraqi-Jewish archive turned out to be, that the Jewish Museum in Florida (JMOF - International University) is to extend the run by a month to 6 March. (With thanks: Maurice)

The
exhibition at JMOF-Florida International University was due to close on
14 February. A delighted JMOF said: the exhibition “is being so well
received, and we are getting visitors from all over the world”.

The
Iraqi-Jewish archive exhibition consists of highlights from a collection of
documents salvaged from the flooded basement of the secret police headquarters
in Baghdad in 2003 and restored over ten years by NARA, the US National Archives and Records Administration.

The
archive was due to return to Iraq in June 2014 after NARA put on the 'Discovery
and Recovery' exhibit in Washington DC and New York. However, the Jewish
community outside Iraq protested that it was the rightful owner of the
documents, which were seized from Jewish homes, schools and synagogues. The archive's
final destination has since been a matter of dispute with the Iraqi
government. The deadline for its return to Iraq has been extended for two years. The exhibit has been touring the US. The archive will stay
in America as long as new venues are found to host the exhibit.

In
addition to extending the exhibition deadline, the JMOF management has decided to celebrate “Iraqi Jews” for their
annual Florida Jewish History Month celebration on Sunday 3 January 2016 at
2:00 pm. They are asking Florida Jews who are from Iraq or have Iraqi
descent to come and share memories. Contact the Museum Director Jo Ann
Arnowitz ( jmofdir@fiu.edu
) for more information.

****

The sale of a very rare Bomberg Talmud invites speculation about how much the
oldest document in the Iraqi-Jewish archive, a Talmud from 1568, might
fetch at auction.

The Times of Israel reports that a 16th-century copy of the Talmud sold at
auction Tuesday for $9.3 million in New York, a global record for any
piece of Judaica, auctioneers Sothebys announced.

The extremely rare Babylonian Talmud had been expected to fetch between five and seven million dollars.

“The extraordinary volume was purchased by
Stephan Loewentheil for the 19th Century Rare Book & Photograph
Shop” in New York, the auctioneers said.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The Jewish press here and here are enthusiastically reporting that the late King Mohammed V of Morocco has been posthumously honoured for 'protecting' his country’s 250,000 Jews during World War II.Some fact-checking is sorely needed, because the Moroccan Sultan actually signed every anti-Jewish decree presented to him by the Vichy authorities who ruled Morocco. For proof that Jews suffered persecution in Morocco between 1940 and 42, look no further than the fact that they have been declared eligible for 'Holocaust' compensation.

KIVUNIM, the Institute for World Jewish Studies honored the king with the first The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. – Rabbi Abraham Heschel Award, to mark the organization’s 10th anniversary.
The honor was presented to granddaughter Princess Lalla Hasna of Morocco on Sunday at New York City’s B’nai Jeshurun synagogue as part of the group’s three-day conference to mark its milestone.

Kivunim is a gap-year program that sends Jewish students to 12 countries each year, including India, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic and Morocco.

During World War II, King Mohammed V kept the lives and property of the country’s Jews under his protection, and did not subject them to the Vichy Laws.

Later on, in response to anti-Jewish rhetoric in the wake of the creation of the State of Israel, Mohammed V warned Muslims not to hurt Moroccan Jews, reminding them that Jews had always been protected in Morocco.

Andre Azoulay, a Jewish advisor to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, said in a statement read on behalf of the king that: “Today, we need, more than ever, to ponder the lessons and relevance of this part of history in order to stand up more forcefully to the deadly aberrations of those who are hijacking our cultures, our faiths and our civilizations.

What is the truth about Mohammed V?
What role did King Mohammed V actually play?Point of No Return comments:

Surrounded by a group of Judeophobic advisers like the antisemite al-Mokri, it was probably remarkable that the King did not support Vichy more enthusiastically. Journalists from the Moroccan Tel Quel magazine reassessed the king's role. 'Just but powerless', they concluded.

As the historian Michel Abitbol explains :
"People forget that real power lay with the Resident-general of the French protectorate ( Abitbol told Information juive - July/ Aug 2008 - Les juifs d'Afrique du Nord sous Vichy). The King kept the trappings of sovereignty, but had no way of opposing the French, unless he put his throne at risk, as he did in the early 1950s.

In the 1940s, however, the king had no choice but to countersign French edicts, such as the notorious 1930 Berber Dahir, a real blow against Islam, and the anti-Jewish Vichy laws. On the personal level, however, he was sympathetic to the many Jews in his entourage. But as the 'statesman', he was forced to sign. "

It is not true to say that His Majesty (Mohammed V) managed to oppose the enforcement of the racist Vichy laws against Moroccan citizens of the Jewish faith.
Mohammed V signed every single anti-Jewish decree. There were decrees forcing the Jews back into their ghettos, instituting quotas or bans in higher education and restricting them in their professions. But he procrastinated on some, keeping them in a drawer unsigned for a month, and tried to reassure a Jewish delegation, who came to see him in an armoured truck, that the decrees meant nothing.

When is anti-Zionism antisemitism? When the Algerian Gendarmes chant, "kill the Jews, skin the Jews!". Antisemitism is no stranger to Algeria. There are no Jews remaining of a community of 130,000, and it has long been a prerequisite for obtaining a passport that your father be a Muslim. The Times of Israel reports, via MEMRI: (With thanks: Lily)

The troops march in formation to an Arabic jody call, responding to turn to lines shouted by an officer.

“Oh, Arabs… sons of Arabs… march on… and turn
your guns towards the Jews… in order to kill them… slaughter them… and
skin them,” they alternate saying.

The clip was posted online on November 1,
Algerian Revolution Day, and was recently translated to English by the
Middle East Media Research Institute. It didn’t specify when the clip
was filmed.

“Long live our free Algeria,” they sing. “Its land will belong to the Muslims forever.”

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Daniel Pipes is a well-known, Arabic-speaking, global authority on the Muslim world, with a regular column in the Jerusalem Post among others. So in an interview about the Muslim migration into the West, it came as a surprise to hear him make certain statements that are uncharacteristic and even historically dubious. Point of No Return sets the record straight (with thanks: Lily):

Update: When challenged to amend his remarks, Pipes replied:

"The
latter (PoNR) seems to think I am saying Jewish life in the Muslim-majority
countries was wonderful. But I am not saying that; I am saying it was
better than in Christendom. I really don't think there is any argument
there. "

Daniel Pipes...historically dubious

Pipes: Yes, the Muslim world is at a low point today, going through a
crisis, and the West is not going through a comparable crisis. But this
is but a brief moment in time. In 1943, where would you have rather been
living?

In Germany or in Iraq? In Italy or in Senegal? Let's not say that
the Judeo-Christian world is so wonderful on the one side, while the
Islamic world is so horrible on the other.

Pipes makes an unfortunate comparison between Germany and Iraq. If
you were unlucky enough to be caught up or killed in the pro-Nazi pogrom
called the Farhud,
it would have been small comfort to be told that Germany was worse.

Pro-Nazi forces in the Arab and Muslim world were defeated because
Nazism lost the war. But Nazi-style ideologies still endure today - and
threaten the West - in the form of Islamist 'fascist' groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, who glorify violence
and antisemitism.

Pipes then goes on to make the following controversial statement:" In the long history of Jews living in predominantly Christian
and Muslim lands, it is striking to note that from the origins of Islam
until the close of World War II, that is to say from 622 until 1945, a
very, very long period of time, Jews almost
always fled from Christian-majority countries to Muslim-majority
countries. They voted with their feet because they rightly expected to
be better off in Muslim countries. It's only the last 70 years, since
1945, a moment in time, that Jews have fled Muslim-majority
countries for predominantly Christian countries.

Not true: Jewish tribes were massacred by Muhammed in
7th century and ethnically cleansed from the Arabian peninsula, except
at the southern tip in Yemen.

Jewish communities lived in the Middle East and North Africa long before these countries became Muslim.

Their numbers were continually eroded by pressure to convert, and the
occasional forced conversion. The so-called Golden Age in Spain was
interrupted by the Granada massacre of 1066.

Jews in Yemen and Iran suffered massacre, degradation and conversion
under Shi'ism. In the Maghreb, al-Maliki Sunnism treated Jews
particularly harshly, after wiping out the Christian presence in North
Africa.

Much is made of the fact that Jews fled the Spanish Inquisition for the Maghreb, Turkey and
Eretz Israel, but Sephardim also went to Holland and Northern Europe, and re-established the British-Jewish community in the 17th century.

Jews fled 19th century Iraq for India and the Far East, not just to
seek economic opportunities along the trade routes of the British
empire, but to escape the oppressive rule of Daoud Pasha in Iraq. In the
late 19th century Jews fled blood libels and the Ottoman draft in Syria for the UK,
the US and Latin America.

The great mass of Jews in Arab and Muslim lands could not escape. With the dawn of the colonial era, Jews fled
Arab rule whenever they could - seeking the protection of western powers and a western passport.

Deliverance from persecution only arrived in 1948, when three-quarters of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa fled Arab rule for
Israel - the only country which would accept Jews unconditionally. The rest went
to the West, not because it was Christian, but because it was
democratic and protected civil rights.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Comparisons between today's Syrian refugees and yesteryear's Jewish refugees are commonly being made nowadays: the West should take in refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war, President Obama and liberal politicians are urging. But New York City Mayor Bill di Blasio's pleas to a congregation in Brooklyn composed of Syrian Jews had them shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

"Some worshippers disputed the mayor’s historical interpretation.
“I don’t think it’s a fair comparison . . . The Jews never had a
history of being destructive,” said Brooklyn resident Judy Zarug.
“I was sitting next to a woman who is a Syrian refugee and she really reacted and it was uncomfortable.”
Another congregant, whose family fled Syria, also disagreed, explaining:
“The difference between me coming here in 1991 with my family is that we were kicked out for being Jewish.”

"Jews were refugees because they committed the offense of being Jewish.
They fled because they needed to save their lives. Not one of the Jewish
refugees who left Poland, Hungary, Germany or any other country, had
committed any atrocities before fleeing. None of them had sworn to
destroy the United States, Great Britain or Canada. None of them were
KNOWN terrorists. They fled to save their lives and only to save their
lives. There was no hidden agenda; nor were they trying to infiltrate
(what to them was) an enemy country."

Joseph Puder in Front Page Magazine argues that Jews escaping the Nazis and Arab lands had no choice: they were targeted for being Jews. More controversially, he argues that Syrian citizens do have a choice. Clearly, they are leaving a war zone where their lives are at risk. But it is the neighbouring Arab countries, especially the rich Gulf states, who are choosing not to give them refuge, leaving the West to carry the burden.

"President Obama is wrong to compare Syrian refugees who have
choices, and Jewish refugees who had none. Syrian citizens are choosing
to leave their homes. True, Assad’s barrel-bombs have killed
indiscriminately, and Islamic State (IS) brutality has impacted on many.
Yet should the U.S. and its allies impose “no fly zone” safe havens in
civilian areas, Syrians (unless they are Christians, Kurds, or Yazidis)
wouldn’t have to abandon their homes. Yesteryear, Jews from Arab lands
had no choice. They were thrown out of their homes were they lived for
millenniums, with literally the “shirts on their back.” Jewish
properties were confiscated by the Arab authorities or taken by street
mobs.

Similarly, survivors of the Holocaust could not return to their
homes, and all their properties and belongings were taken by the native
non-Jewish population or the Nazis.

Nazi Germany aimed to
eradicate all Jews from Europe and elsewhere, while no such danger has
faced Syrian refugees. In fact, there are 57 Islamic nations that are
able to receive their fellow co-religionists. The Jews of Palestine
during WWII would have done their utmost to absorb Jewish refugees had
the British Mandatory regime in Palestine not closed the gates to the
Jews of Europe."

A small proportion of refugees from Syria include Yazidis and Christians. Yet, for reasons of political correctness, the US State Department will not recognise Christians as genocide victims, writes Nina Shea in the National Review.

"Yazidis, according to the story by investigative reporter Michael
Isikoff, are going to be officially recognized as genocide victims, and
rightly so. Yet Christians, who are also among the most vulnerable
religious minority groups that have been deliberately and mercilessly
targeted for eradication by ISIS, are not. This is not an academic
matter. A genocide designation would have significant policy
implications for American efforts to restore property and lands taken
from the minority groups and for offers of aid, asylum, and other
protections to such victims. Worse, it would mean that, under the
Genocide Convention, the United States and other governments would not
be bound to act to suppress or even prevent the genocide of these
Christians."

Sunday, December 20, 2015

As reported in the Times of Israel, a French-Jewish author and ethnopsychologist has won a prestigious
literary prize in Tunisia for a book he wrote about the life and
expulsion of Egyptian Jews. Tobie Nathan had an academic career and served as cultural attache to the French embassy in Israel in the early 2000s. The award may be interpreted not only as a recognition that Jews were forced out of the Arab world, but to show that, in spite of sporadic terror attacks and the rise of Islamism since the Arab Spring, the secular Tunisian elite is philosemitic. (with thanks: Veronique, Lily and Jeff)

Tobie Nathan(Photo: Joël Saget AFP)

The
jury of the “Goncourt List: The Choice of Tunisia” award voted
Wednesday to give its first-ever prize to Tobie Nathan for his book
“This Country that Resembles You,” which was published in French earlier
this year.

The Tunisian award was established earlier
this year as the local version of France’s Goncourt Prize, awarded
annually since 1903 by the Académie Goncourt literary society in Paris
to the author of “the best and most imaginative prose work of the year.”
Prominent members of the French society visited Tunisia in October to
assist the Tunisian affiliate in selecting candidates for the prize.

Nathan was announced as the affiliate’s
first-ever laureate at an event Wednesday at the French Institute of
Tunisia. The four final candidates were selected according to the votes
of 176 literature professionals and students from 12 institutions, the
news site tunivisions.net reported Thursday.

Friday, December 18, 2015

In January 2015 the Qatar-owned satellite channel al-Jazeera broadcast a programme about Jews in Morocco. "Jews first began to settle in Morocco over 2, 000 years ago," said the presenter."... and for centuries they and Muslims have happily co-existed there." Now the English version of a compilation of commented original documents, L'Exil du Maghreb, mainly but not exclusively found in Jewish sources, will provide a corrective to this common historical distortion. Professor Paul Fenton, director of Hebrew and Arabic studies at the Sorbonne, gave a Harif/Spiro Ark lecture about his book, written jointly with the late historian David Littman. Report by Lyn Julius.

Exile in the Maghreb is a compilation of documents shedding light on the conditions in which Jews lived in the Maghreb over 10 centuries. It was produced at first in French by two British-born historians. It is about to be published in English.

The makers of the Al-Jazeera programme
might never have heard of the fanatical Almohades, who ruled Morocco
for 250 years in the 13th century and invaded Spain, causing many Jews
to flee. Fundamentalist Almohad rule led to Christianity being wiped out
in the Maghreb. Many Jews such as Maimonides converted to Islam on pain of death in the
Middle Ages, if only for a short time - according to some historians.

When
conditions later improved under the Marinids, converts reverted back to
Judaism. Sephardi Jews from Spain came to settle in the coastal towns of Morocco,
but one group headed for the deep south - the city of Touat.

These
commerce-minded, cultivated Jews soon established a thriving presence
in Touat. They set about building synagogues. One even overlooked a
mosque, in violation of traditional rules.

What
they did not reckon with, in the fateful year of 1492, was the arrival
in Touat of a cleric from Tlemcen (in present-day Algeria): Muhammed
al-Karim al -Maghili.

Al-Maghili,
who was instrumental in converting large numbers of Africans in the
south of Morocco to Islam, was shocked by the Jews he saw in Touat. He
wrote an epistle to the local chieftains calling on them to destroy the
synagogues and expel those swine Jewish infidels, or enslave them. (The
epistle is among the documents featured in Exile in the Maghreb.)

This the chieftains did.

It
is a sorry sign of how intolerant of minorities were the theologians of
the al-Maliki school of Islam in the Maghreb until the colonial era,
that one of the first things they published when the printing press came to
Morocco in the 19th century, was not a scientific tract, or even the
Koran, but the Epistle against the Jews which al-Maghili wrote to the
chieftains of Touat five centuries earlier.

Maghreb scholars preserved a strict interpretation of the dhimmi
laws which governed the relationship of Jews and Muslims under the 8th
century Pact of Omar. The Arab prophet of Islam Muhammad had spared the lives of the
defeated Jews and Christians as 'People of the Book', rather than put
them to the sword, but they had to abide by rules denoting their
subjugation and inferiority to Muslims.

Following codification in the 13th century by the literalist theologian Ibn Taymiyya, 'Dhimmi'
acquired a precise meaning in Islamic jurisprudence: non-Muslims would
be 'protected' by Muslims in return for a capitation or poll tax. This
begs the question - protected against whom?

Violent
mobs singled out the Jewish 'Other' for attack and looting. Jews
would 'cop it' at times of political turmoil or trouble.

Jews
could not build new synagogues or repair them without permission; they
had to allow Muslims to enter them at will. Jewish homes had sometimes
to be painted red or blue, even after Jews had been permitted in modern
times to move out of the Jewish mellah into the medina.

Jews
were forbidden from teaching their children the Koran. This was to
prevent Jews engaging in theological polemics with Muslims.

Jews had to wear special badges and black attire. A Jew's djellaba was worn awkwardly 'off the shoulder' for maximum discomfort. Jews were not permitted to blow the ram's horn (shofar) in a public place. The Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem would use this pretext to incite anti-Jewish riots in 1929.

Jews
could be accused of insulting Islam on the slightest pretext - so they
avoided including 'Allah' in their greetings in case they were overheard and misinterpreted.
The penalty was conversion to Islam. For 600 years, and as late as
1890, Jews had to submit to a humiliating slap on the neck when they
handed over the jizya or poll tax.

It
was to help overcome these arbitrary and degrading rules, recorded by
19th century travellers and reported by the teachers of the Alliance
(AIU) schools network, founded in 1860, that the AIU, the Anglo-Jewish
Association, and their German-Jewish counterpart, determined to improve
the lot of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, primarily
through education.

There
was almost no escape unless a Jew managed to obtain a foreign
passport. As go-betweens, translators or agents of European powers, Jews
demanded colonial protection. The Jews of the port of Mogador were
lucky enough to hold British passports.

Exile in the Maghreb consists of a wealth of original documents amassed by David
Littman. He found them in the archives of the Anglo-Jewish Association,
the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) and British foreign office documents. The Alliance teachers felt it was their duty to get
better legal protection for their Jews, even at the cost of their lives.

The
myth persists that the Jewish communities at the heart of the Ottoman
empire were better treated than the Jews in the Maghreb. Conditions were
generally less harsh because the Jews were among several minorities,
and the Christians bore the brunt of any popular violence. However,
Professor Fenton did come across one document where Jews in Safed
complained to the Ottoman sultan that the local Pasha was making them clear animal refuse on Shabbat. Jews could even be required to do chores on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

As
for the myth that Islam was more tolerant of Jews than Christendom,
Professor Fenton pointed out that more Jews (3,000) had been massacred
in Granada, Spain, in 1066 - in a Muslim backlash against the Jewish
vizir Joseph ibn Naghrela - than lived in the Rhineland towns of Speyer,
Worms and Mainz during the Crusades.

(Copies of Exile in the Maghreb (regular
price $59.99) by Paul B Fenton and David G Littman may be obtained from
www.rowman.com at a 30 percent discount (39.17 Euros) until 31 December
2015. Quote code UP30AUTH16.)

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Levana Zamir, head of the organisations of Jews from Arab countries in Israel, and Avi Nahmani, director of the lobby for the recovery of stolen property from Arab lands, listen while MK Oren Hazan (right) reads out the draft Convention.

Israel is reported to be in secret talks with Arab governments to agree on an international fund to compensate losses sustained by both Jews and Palestinian refugees.

According to Likud MK Micky Zohar, talks have been taking place with the Egyptian government and with the full knowledge and support of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

MK Micky Zohar, together with Likud MK Oren Hazan, co-chaired a meeting of the Knesset lobby for the recovery of stolen Jewish properties from Arab lands on 15 December to finalise a Convention proposing the establishment of an International Fund. This concept, first proposed by US president Clinton in 2000, will compensate both Jewish refugees from Arab lands and individual Palestinian refugees for their losses.

The lobby will work together with the government and Knesset to get the fund set up. It considers the International Fund a 'tool for peace' because it is thought that compensation will lead the Palestinians to drop their 'right of return'.

The heads of the representative bodies of Jews from Arab countries put their signatures to the Convention. "It was very moving," said Levana Zamir, overall head of the representative bodies of Jews from Arab lands. " We thought of our parents who did not have this privilege and did not survive to see their sufferings recognised. It was a miracle."

Barring a few amendments, the Convention will form the basis for a bill to be proposed in the Knesset. In 2010, the Knesset passed a law stipulating that no peace treaty could be signed without compensation for Jewish refugees being on the agenda.

As the numbers of Jewish refugees still living are fast diminishing, the Convention will also propose a law to enable descendants of refugees to qualify for compensation.

The lobby undertakes to push for a renewed campaign to register property claims. It will also do its utmost to publicise the 'Jewish Nakba' and establish a museum dedicated to the history of Jews driven from the Middle East and North Africa.

For a copy of the text of the Draft Convention (Hebrew), please email bataween@gmail.com

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

An Israeli of Syrian origin is planning a documentary film to reveal new information behind the disappearance of the Aleppo Codex, the oldest and most valuable Bible in the world. It will portray the glory days of the Aleppo Jewish community, largely destroyed in 1947.

A fragment of the Aleppo Codex, now in Jerusalem (Photo: Irene Pshedezki)

The Aleppo Codex (a.k.a the Crown or Keter) was kept for centuries in the great synagogue of Aleppo, Syria. A third of it disappeared on its way from Syria to Israel, while the rest is kept at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.

The circumstances leading to the disappearance of the missing pages, as well as the claim of ownership or the appropriation of the Crown by the state of Israel, have remained open questions.

New testimonials reveal a story that was never told about the disappearance of the crown and about the identity of its holders.

The film, named “The Lost Crown”, will uncover the true story of the disappearance of the Crown and will tell the story of the Aleppo community in its days of glory.

The director, Avi Dabach, is an Israeli filmmaker and the great- grandson of Ezra Dabach, the caretaker of the great synagogue in Aleppo.

For the last five years, Avi has been researching the Halabi (Aleppan) community of Syria. Now, he says, is the time to take this project one step forward from the research stages to production:
“Since I have begun to take an interest in the story of the Crown, I have been finding new details, some surprising and some disturbing. It appears that the official account is not necessarily true, and certainly not the whole truth. I invite people to join the journey to the Aleppo communities, spread around the world. Together we will reveal some of the secrets surrounding the Crown, and tell the secret this unique, stubborn community, of which I am proud to be part of”.

The story of the missing pages was the focus of a book by Matti Friedman. How will the film be different?
"I have read Mati's excellent book, but my point of view is different," says Avi Dabach.

"I'm acting as a member of the Halabi community, and I put much emphasis on the remaining parts of the Aleppo Codex, held in the Israel Museum, not only the missing pages."

The film makers are looking for crowd-funding to finance 'The Lost Crown'. For details click here.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

The World Jewish Congress commemorated the 30 November day to remember the exodus of Jews from Arab countries with this testimony from a Sudanese Jew. It is one of several compiled by Daisy Abboudi, author of Tales of Jewish Sudan.

In 1967, immediately after the Six Day War, the Arab League Summit
convened in Sudan to issue the Khartoum Resolution, declaring that
there would be “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no
negotiations with it”. In spite of this, the Sudanese government never
formally expelled or evicted its Jews. The 1,000-strong community was a
financial asset, with many of its members owning large wholesale
businesses. This meant that by 1967, it was extremely difficult for
Jews to get an exit visa or transfer any assets out of the country.

Nearly the entire Jewish community had to leave Sudan under false
pretense, fabricating holidays or business trips and leaving all of
their belongings to sympathetic friends or neighbors. They settled in
Israel, America (where immigration quotas meant they could easily attain
citizenship), England (via other African colonies) and Switzerland.

In 1977, some remains were moved from the Jewish cemetery in
Khartoum to Jerusalem, although many more remain in terrible condition
in Sudan.
As Israel marks November 30, the day designated by Knesset to
commemorate the lost communities of almost one million Jews from the
Middle East and North Africa, here are a few personal stories told by
members of the Jewish community in Sudan who left the country more out
of necessity than by choice. Special thanks to Daisy Abboudi, author of Tales of Jewish Sudan, for compiling these testimonies.

“I had just finished my O-Levels in the summer of 1967, I was 16 and
we went for a holiday with my family to England, only my older brother
he stayed in Sudan to work in the shop. We went for a holiday but then
because of the 1967 war with Israel we couldn't go back. My brother
that stayed, he was 21 and he wanted papers to leave the country. But
they wouldn’t give him, they put him in prison overnight to interrogate
him. And not just him, all the young Jewish men. They took them to
interrogate them in the prison. After one night they saw he has
nothing, and they let him out. But then he wanted to leave the country!
And he couldn’t. No papers he can’t go. So he went from one Embassy
to another, to another. No-one will give him, only the Swiss. He
finally came to the Swiss Ambassador and he came to him and he said,
‘Can you help? I need to go. I am a Jew and I need to leave this country.’
The Ambassador said, ‘I know the problem, I will do something for you’.

He gave him the papers, and he went out of that country to Geneva as a refugee.
But what about us? We were still in England, we asked them to give us
asylum they said no. Canada? ‘No’. South Africa? They said that we are
born in Sudan we might be black and so,‘No’.

Nobody. My father even had a heart attack in England after
that. He left everything. The shop as it is, the house as it is. He
had told my brother to give the keys of the shop to a man who was
working with him there, a Nigerian man. All the stock he lost. And the
house - everything in it - we gave to the woman who used to sell the
eggs and the pigeons because we were friends with her and we used to eat
at her place a lot. So, no asylum, we went to Israel."

Monday, December 14, 2015

For the first time in the history of modern Turkey, a public Hanucah lighting ceremony was held in Istanbul. Whether they take place in Washington DC, Bahrain or Berlin, these ceremonies are a good PR exercise by which governments reassure their Jewish minorities and show off a shared culture. The Turkish ceremony comes at a time when the Jewish community is dwindling - thousands are applying for Spanish passports. Predictably, the authorities are denying that the Jews of Turkey are suffering anti-semitic pressure from the state.

The Times of Israel reports:
The
event was organized by the municipality, and attended by the Turkish
chief rabbi and members of the Jewish community, according to Turkey’s
Jewish Şalom newspaper.

Government representatives were also present
at the candle-lighting, which coincided with the eighth and final night
of the Jewish Festival of Lights.

A video of the ceremony, held outside the
scenic Ortakoy Mosque on the European side of the Bosphorus, showed the
eight-branched candelabra set to be lit as the Muslim call to pray rang
out. Pictures from the event posted on social media showed Turkish girls
in headscarves standing beside the Jewish holiday lamp.

Last week, in a Hanukkah message, Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “our Jewish citizens are an
indispensable part of our society.”

“With these thoughts I wish peace, happiness
and well-being to all Jews on the occasion of Hanukkah,” Erdogan said on
December 7, according to the Hurriyet Daily News.

The Daily Sabah reports:
Turkey's Jewry usually state that they do not suffer from any kind of
segregation or discrimination in the country. The community rejects
allegations in news sources or dailies that the Turkish state promotes
anti-Semitism in the country with "many Jews deciding to go to Spain
where a law of return is presently being legislated."

In a statement to Daily Sabah, Turkey's Jewish community refuted the
accusation of pressure from the Turkish state on their community and
said: "Pressure from the state is out of question."

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)